CLARIFYING MY LIFE BY JORDYN ZAHORANSKY

Busy college schedules are always met with long nights, stress, and big projects. These schedules seldom leave time to look at an assignment for more than five minutes without starting to dive into the work. Something new I have begun to do is stop before beginning an assignment and find the deeper meaning of it, or clarify the task for myself. This includes me asking myself why I am doing an assignment and what I want to get out of it. I often use the tools white hat and 5 whys to ask myself more questions. Clarifying my assignments helps me better understand the root of my classes and helps me grasp the bigger picture of what I want to accomplish with each assignment.

 In the last few weeks, I have started to implement this tactic in my personal life. When I am faced with big problems, I usually immediately react. My reactions lead me to jump to conclusions, misinterpret, or mistreat situations. I find this a creative struggle because my reactions allow me to settle for my first right answers as responses.

 Using these clarification tactics, I have instead been taking ten minutes to find the deeper meaning of my reactions. My two favorite tools to do so are 100 questions and white hat. Clarification helps me better understand the real problem at hand and reevaluate how to move forward with the situation.